My Beloved Ferret
by StopBlowingHolesInMyShips/Krystallia

AN:
Welcome to Chapter Nine! This is the chapter where...well, you'll see P :blows raspberry and is feeling evil: ;)
Yes, the chapter is called 'Chapter Nine' (as opposed to being called 'Arrivals and Departures' or 'Crossing The Line' or something like that. Muffin next chapter to whoever remembers what fic those two titles are from...hint, it's considered one of the best Harry Potter romance fics of all time). You'll see why it was named that later -

Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine

Continuing From:
That had become the Golden Rule of Ginny's current life. Stay away from Draco Malfoy.

For, previously, wherever there was Draco there was Blaise.

And now, wherever there was Draco...there was still Blaise. His memories were lurking around the castle, haunting two young students, one a Slytherin boy, one a Gryffindor girl.

Both still incredibly upset, and both hiding it incredibly well.

Ginny beat the pillow in a bout of frustration. Sleep was slinking away from her with every bad thought she cast into her own head. She sighed, realizing that sleep could only be chased away, not lured back, and got up to get a glass of water.

Ginny slipped away to the Common Room, and for the first time in her life she felt exposed in her pajamas (consisting of a camisole and shorts). More, she felt like she was being watched. Yes, that was the feeling.

She stuck her tongue out into the darkness, miffed at the nerve of whatever evil being was trying to kill someone today, and also to scare them into thinking what she herself doubted: that she could handle them. Should they come after her.

Whoever it was, they didn't chase her back upstairs as she settled into bed with a candle, a book, and her beverage. She flipped to the chapter she had left off on and began to read, inching down the page. Unlike Hermione, Ginny wasn't a fast reader, and her brain was less sponge-like than her friend's. It took Ginny a slow pace to absorb and take in what she was reading. Ginny had always marveled at Hermione's speed. She could flip through pages and pages and finish a thick book within less than a day, and still remember what she read about.

Ginny shook her head, as if to shake off stupid, clingy thoughts. She continued to amble her way through Chapter Nine, a particularly good one out of the entire novel so far. Ginny sighed. Chapter Nine was nearly the end of the book, one she had been reading for a long time, and she was dying to reach the end soon enough. Not because she didn't like the book--no, she loved it!--it was just that the suspense was killing her.

Ginny heard creaks as the floor in the dormitory next door shifted with the weight of someone. Tiptoe footsteps followed. Ginny poked her head out of the door. Hermione was creeping out of her room, dressed in jeans and a slim gray hoodie.

"Bit chilly outside, good thing you're wearing a sweatshirt," Ginny called out, keeping her voice low.

Hermione did a rapid double-take and her hand flew to her heart. "Ginny!" she breathed, frightened. "What...why...How?"

"Just where do you think you're going, missy?" Ginny laughed. She was talking like...hrm...Ginny couldn't quite place it, but she was reminding herself of someone else.

"I was just going to Harry's dorm--" Ginny suppressed desparate laughter, and Hermione made one of those 'oh, shut up' noises as she grinned--"Honestly! Stop it," Hermione smiled. "I was going to meet him by the boys dormitories because we're going to Hogsmeade." Great job, Hermione. Let it slip.

"Oh? Isn't it a little late for a date? Or are you going on a nice moonlit stroll?"

Hermione made a little noise in her throat and tried to get away. She needed to meet Harry...Finally, she decided to just go along with Ginny. "Okay, fine. We're going on a date. Three Broomsticks just re-opened as a 24-hour restaurant, did you hear? I hear Rosmerta hired a new assistant Head Waitress or something like that..."

Ginny's eyebrow raised, she continued prodding. "Why d'you suddenly decide to start being rebellious now? I thought even Head Boy and Girl weren't allowed to leave school grounds after curfew."

"Ginny, none of this is your concern. Get back to bed or I can--and will--report you for being out of your dorm."

"But I'm in my dorm," Ginny pointed out, for her feet were still placed in the room.

"Then I'll drag you out and report you!" Hermione threatened angrily, her teeth gritted.

Ginny stalked back into her bedroom as Hermione stalked down the hall. The redhead yanked a black sweatshirt over her pajamas and continued quietly.

Not so fast, thought a groggy ferret, awoken from the harsh whispering between the girls. He jumped onto his feet and padded quietly after her, his pale fur glowing faintly in the plunging darkness of the night.

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Hermione slipped into the seventh year boys' dormitory without any trouble. There lay Seamus, Dean and Neville in their beds, Ron's empty as a cracked eggshell. Hermione kept walking until she reached the portrait of a lion and a lioness curled up before a fire. She whipped out her wand and drew an 'H' over the painting. It became a revolving door, which she entered, revealing the Head Boy's room.

There he was, sleeping soundly under the covers of his four-poster. His hair was messy as anything and sticking out in all sorts of directions, and he was wearing a dark green T-shirt that would've brought out his eyes so nicely if they were open. Hermione crept over to him and kissed him quietly to wake him up. He did.

"...Hi," he started sleepily.

"Hi," replied Hermione, laughing just a little bit. He smiled.

"I'm really tired..." He made a show of stretching.

"Well, start being awake because we can't have you waltzing around half-asleep and not alert at all."

Harry blinked into the darkness. "Sit. I didn't get much sleep."

Hermione sighed, the smile falling off her face like a dropped piece of paper. "I didn't, either." She sat on his bed with her back against the footboard, legs folded in half with her arms hugging them. "I'm just so worried. What if we're completely wrong and Ron is really somewhere else, and this is all a trap, and what if something happens and--"

"Hush." He leaned and pressed a finger to her lips. "I don't think this is a trap--if so, it's not very well planned. No, I think that this is more of a nasty surprise that Voldemort has got up his sleeve."

"Do you really think it's Voldemort?" asked Hermione doubtfully. "I mean, didn't we banish him?" Her arms shivered with the thought.

Harry smiled in an odd way. It was a kind, strange smile. "Yeah, we did. But evil like him always sticks around. It really...it really..."

Hermione shuddered again. "It's just...We did so much to get rid of him, we spent so much time and lives killing him, and to think that he's back...To think..." Hermione sucked in her breath. "It's like nothing was even worth it."

"Oh, but it was easy," grinned Harry, and this time his expression was a little more...real? Hermione couldn't find the words. "Right? I wouldn't mind banishing him again."

"Oh, I would," scoffed Hermione, but she was smiling too.

Harry grabbed her and kissed her, their lips brushing against each other tenderly and eventually pressing together with all of their might. They wanted nothing more than to be with each other without endangering the lives of those around them, but it was the one thing they couldn't get.
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Ginny had been moving quickly down the hallway when she noticed Cocoa. She gasped and scooped him up. He really was quite smart to have followed her. Tucking him under her arm with the book she'd been reading, she continued down the corridor.

She must've lost Hermione in the darkness, because she was nowhere to be seen. Ginny walked quickly until she finally just found the Common Room and sat by the fire, reading her book. She was deep in the most suspenseful piece of the chapter when all of the sudden, a hand was thrown over her mouth, and an arm snapped around her waist and yanked her to the floor.

She felt something bind her hands together and make her legs fold. She realized that someone was tying her body to a broom--and they were taking off!

"Who the hell are you?" she screamed, but it was so black she couldn't see.

Her kidnapper flew the broom straight through the window of Gryffindor Common Room, shattering the ancient glass into a million pieces and soaring off into the night. The metal rod that held up the curtains flung down and smacked Ginny in the head. She felt herself going out like a candle as the broom sped away.
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"Hermione."

"Mmmph."

"Hermione.

"Mmmm!'

"Fine, I won't make you get up. I just wanted to let you know that I went down to the Common Room and no one was there, and then I looked at the window and I saw it was broken. So when I went downstairs, I saw everyone in the school all huddled in the Great Hall and--"

"Everyone?" Hermione sat up from her spot on the couch, perking up. She turned her head and saw that Harry wasn't sleeping on the bed, where she'd left him, but that he was standing up, fully dressed. "What happened?"

"I don't know, but I think as Head Boy and Girl we should sort of get downstairs."

"Oh, all right, all right..." Hermione yawned and followed Harry back downstairs. McGonagall breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of them.

"Oh, thank goodness, you're here!" she exclaimed.

"Professor..." started Harry. "What's happened?"

"I am afraid that...a student has been kidnapped!"